Oakland escapes Frost with 85-82 win

Saturday, January 23

Frost Arena

7:30 p.m.

South Dakota State University

Oakland

1/24/2010 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball

By: SDSU Sports Info

South Dakota State led for most of Saturday's Summit League showdown against Oakland, but the Golden Grizzlies kept the Jackrabbits close enough to come back and win the game, despite the best efforts of the season-high crowd of 4,064 fans in Frost Arena.

"If you're going to feel bad after a game like our kids do, I would rather feel the way we feel tonight than feel like some games we've had where we don't have effort," said SDSU head coach Scott Nagy after the game. "I thought that our effort was good tonight and our kids played hard and physical. I think you just have to give Oakland credit. They were just a little bit tougher and when the game got tight, they made the plays and we didn't."

The Jacks fall to an even 10-10 with the loss, 6-3 in The Summit League, while Oakland improves to 15-7 overall, 9-0 in league play, as they tied the league record with 16 consecutive league wins. The last Oakland loss in regular season conference play came on Jan. 31, 2009, when the Jacks downed the Golden Grizzlies 74-68 in overtime in Frost Arena.

Kai Williams led four Jackrabbits in double figures with 14 points, Clint Sargent scored 13, Nate Wolters 12 and Anthony Cordova 10 points, as the Jacks shot a season-high 56 percent from the floor.

Keith Benson led Oakland with 23 points and added a game-high 11 rebounds, Johnathon Jones added 17, while Derick Nelson and Ledrick Eackles both finished with 15. Oakland shot 49 percent from the field, but the Golden Grizzlies only turned the ball over seven times, compared to 17 from the Jacks.

"That's the ball game," said Nagy. "We had some chances in the first half and the first half is where we blew the game. Probably the last four minutes of the first half, I thought that we had a good chance to stick it to them and they just turned up the pressure and I felt like we melted and were not very tough at that point. You can look at a lot of things, but that four minutes period was probably the worst four minutes period for us."

Down four early in the game, the Jacks rattled off a 17-0 run that ended with the Jacks up 30-17, but Oakland chipped away at the lead, only trail 44-39 at halftime.

The Jacks held on the lead before OU finally got it back with 7:13 left to play in the game. Six more lead changes and six ties followed before the Golden Grizzlies took the lead for good on a Larry Wright layup with 2:05 to go.

SDSU returns to action on Thursday, when the Jacks start the second half of the Summit League season in Shreveport, La., against Centenary. SDSU won the first meeting of the season 89-59 on Jan. 2, in the Lamb Bonanza at Frost Arena.